General, you should rest now; the lady is even more ruthless.

After a short rest, Jiang Qiqi changed into some light clothes and went out again.

Don't forget that Lin'er and the old man they picked up are still at the clinic.

While packing her bags, she found the packet of medicine that the old man had dropped.

However, the packaging of this medicine...

Why does she look so familiar?

Unlike the medicine packets in ordinary clinics, which are wrapped in mugwort paper or yellow paper and tied with hemp rope, these packets are made by directly using large tree leaves and slightly more resilient grass.

It's big, but too rudimentary.

Oh!

She remembered—wasn't this Tang Yiqing's packaging leaf? She had seen it at Tang Yiqing's stall before.

It turned out that the old man had gone to Liyuan County to seek medicine from a renowned doctor.

The journey was long and arduous, the mountains were high and the roads were long.

Jiang Qiqi couldn't help but sigh, realizing how difficult it was for ordinary people in ancient times; they had to pay so much just to survive.

Thinking about it this way, the governor of Longcheng deserves to die even more.

She wrapped the medicine bag in another layer of cloth and carried it out.

When Jiang Qiqi arrived at the clinic, the old man had already woken up and was searching for something with Lin'er.

Jiang Qiqi took out the medicine and returned it to the old man: "Grandpa, your medicine is here."

"Oh my, that's wonderful!" The old man exclaimed in surprise, then hugged the medicine tightly, bursting into tears of joy. "Thank goodness the medicine wasn't lost. My Yu'er is saved! Cough cough cough cough."

"So you picked up the medicine, Miss." Lin'er breathed a sigh of relief. "The old man almost fainted again when he woke up and couldn't find the medicine. Luckily, I reacted quickly and pressed his philtrum."

"This young lady is so kind; she even knocked out my front tooth that was hurting so badly. It's really kind of her," the old man said.

"Hehe, you're welcome, it's nothing." Lin'er scratched her head shyly.

Jiang Qiqi: ...Lin'er, listen carefully! They're thanking you!

Extremely insensitive power.

"Thank you, young lady." The old man, clutching the medicine, was about to kneel down before Jiang Qiqi. "Thank you for saving me."

"No need for such formalities, sir. It was nothing at all," Jiang Qiqi said, helping him up.

The old man sat back on the bed, fumbled around in his pocket for a while, and pulled out a few copper coins. He said somewhat embarrassedly, "Young lady, this is all the money I have left at home. I don't know if it's enough for the medicine."

"No need," Jiang Qiqi pushed the money back. "Just stay here in the clinic and I'll pay for your medicine."

"No need to cough," the old man waved his hand.

“Young lady, I’m leaving now. My son is waiting at home for this medicine to save his life. He has been infected with the plague for six days. I have to, I have to send the medicine back immediately.” With that, he got out of bed and was about to leave.

"Hey, wait a minute." Jiang Qiqi called out to him, "Old man, you've only just recovered, you shouldn't move around too much."

She didn't want to see him unconscious on the road again after all the effort she had put in to bring him back.

She asked, "Where do you live? Let me take you home."

"This..." The old man hesitated, "My benefactor, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that you've already saved my life, and now you still want to help me deliver medicine, this..."

"It's nothing," Jiang Qiqi said. "If you're going to help someone, help them all the way. Consider it my doing two good deeds today."

“That’s right, old lady. If you don’t rest, no one can save you. Don’t you want to see your son get better?” Lin’er chimed in from the side.

The old man was persuaded. Who wouldn't want to live if they could? Besides, he couldn't bear to leave his son behind.

"Oh, thank you so much, thank you so much, Bodhisattva!" The old man wasn't even this excited when he was rescued.

“Goddess, my home is in a small village at the foot of the mountain north of Longcheng, called Xiaoyu Village. My family is the third household when you enter the village. There is only one door, so it is easy to find.”

He described it in detail, afraid that Jiang Qiqi might have made a mistake.

"Okay." Jiang Qiqi wrote it all down. "You just focus on getting better, and I'll take the medicine back for you."

"Thank you very much."

Jiang Qiqi left Lin'er there to take care of the elderly while she left the city.

Sure enough, after walking two or three kilometers north, she saw a few scattered houses ahead, and the words "Xiaoyu Village" were carved on a large rock in front of her.

“First house, second house…” Jiang Qiqi counted the houses and found the place the old man had mentioned.

……

She had never felt the meaning of the four characters "home", "alone", "four", and "wall" so directly.

The home the old man spoke of was just a few walls built with stones and mud to keep out the wind, covered with a few thatched roofs.

One of the two doors fell off, and the other was rubbed so badly that it lost its color.

There was a window, but probably to save on window paper, it was only a tiny one, smaller than Jiang Qiqi's face.

The crack in the wall, however, was bigger than her face.

Jiang Qiqi stepped into the house and, by the light filtering through the cracks in the wall, saw a low door on the right side of the room.

She bent down and went inside.

"Cough cough, Father, is that you back?" A boy's voice rang out upon hearing the noise, but it was so weak that it was almost inaudible.

The interior of the house was consistent with the exterior, with only a wooden table with a broken leg, three small stools, a pot, and a kang (a heated brick bed) made of stones and mud.

The boy lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), covered with a thin quilt.

The boy was so thin he was practically skin and bones. He covered his mouth with his hands, which were thinner than chicken claws, and coughed. His body was trembling slightly, whether from the cold or discomfort, it was hard to tell.

Jiang Qiqi looked at him.

Despite his weakness, his eyes were very bright.

The boy's eyes flashed with fierceness when he saw that the person was a stranger, but his weakness made it less intimidating: "Who are you?"

Jiang Qiqi didn't care about his hostility: "I'm the one who delivered the medicine for you. Your father got the life-saving medicine for you from the miracle doctor. He fainted on the way back."

"What? My dad's unconscious? Cough cough cough cough!" The boy was so excited that he started coughing violently again.

“You don’t need to worry,” Jiang Qiqi said. She was really afraid that the child would cough to death at any moment. “I saved your father. He is in the clinic now and will come back when he is feeling better.”

"I see, thank you." The wariness in the boy's eyes subsided slightly.

Jiang Qiqi nodded in response to him.

She turned around, added some water to the pot with a ladle, poured the medicine into the pot, turned around and sat down on the stool to start brewing the medicine.

Fortunately, she had previously infiltrated a traditional Chinese medicine clinic as part of a mission.

The boy paused for a moment, then stared at Jiang Qiqi: "You should leave."

The plague is contagious.

“I will leave, but not now,” she replied.

The room fell silent again, broken only by the occasional muffled cough.

Half an hour later.

Seeing the medicine in the pot become thick, Jiang Qiqi wiped the sweat from her brow and stood up.

"I am leaving."

"Please wait!" This time the boy spoke to persuade her to stay.

"Hmm?" She turned around.

The boy took a deep breath as if he had made a major decision.

“I can tell that you are a big shot who doesn’t belong in Longcheng. You must have your purpose in coming to Longcheng.” He stared intently at Jiang Qiqi, not missing any of her reactions.

Unfortunately, Jiang Qiqi did not react at all.

She simply stopped and looked at him: "So?"

The boy's clear eyes held determination, but also a hint of trepidation: "So, miss, do you want to buy a servant?"